Ceramics came into my life before I could choose it. My father was a chemical engineer with a master’s degree in Ceramic Engineering from Ohio State University, and he worked for many years for Ferro Mexicana, supplying raw materials to the ceramic industry in Mexico and around the world. He had the opportunity to visit the main ceramic workshops and factories in different countries, and I remember him telling me how impressed he was by Italy, Portugal, and Spain because of the quality of their work and their designs.
One day he decided those stories weren’t enough and set up a workshop at our house: a potter’s wheel, a gas kiln, and an electric kiln. That’s where we started experimenting with clay, pouring slip into plaster molds. My mom became passionate about decorating porcelain until she became a master painter. From that family workshop, a small business was born, Cerámica Valmen, where we made jars, tableware, vases, and lamps.
By a twist of fate, an Oaxacan master potter, Mr. Arnulfo Mendoza, came to the workshop. I hired him to use the wheel we had, the wheel that neither I nor my brothers knew how to use. When Arnulfo sat down at the wheel and began shaping pieces with his hands while the clay spun, I was mesmerized. I’m not exaggerating—I was captivated to see how a form was born from a block of clay as it turned. He was the one who taught me to throw on the wheel, and his son Enrique taught me everything else: making molds, preparing glazes, and glazing. Everything I know about ceramics I learned in that workshop.
But life doesn’t always let you do what you want. Cerámica Valmen wasn’t a viable business, and I had to close it down. I worked in the chemical industry for more than thirty years. But all that time, I never gave up pottery: I always kept a small workshop at home, a potter’s wheel, and an electric kiln. The workshop went with me wherever I went, even during the nearly twenty years I lived in the United States.
When I returned to Mexico and retired from the chemical industry, I was finally able to do what I had longed to do all my life: get the workshop in shape. Today my workshop is in Malinalco, and I mainly work on the lathe and with porcelain, which is what I like most. Each piece is different, and I make them for the sheer pleasure of creating.
Ceraminalco is a space where I can share my pieces with people who are interested in learning about my work in ceramics. That’s why I decided to create this site: to have a place to show what I do, experiment with new techniques, and keep making pieces I enjoy.
